Elizabeth “Bitsy” Waters

Elizabeth “Bitsy” Waters is a retired urban planner who spent her career as a mediator/facilitator, concentrating on issues related to land use, the environment, and historic preservation. She was a Senior Associate at the Institute for Environmental Negotiation at UVA and taught part-time in the urban planning program at UVA before opening her own consulting practice. Ms. Waters has served as Mayor of Charlottesville and on many public and non-profit Boards and Commissions in the Charlottesville area. She was a member of teams that led the restoration and re-use of Charlottesville’s historic African-American Jefferson School and James Madison’s Montpelier in Orange, VA. Ms. Waters was a founding member of United Way’s Women United in Philanthropy and was the first chairman of the Charlottesville Tree Commission. She currently serves on the Board of Literacy Volunteers of Charlottesville-Albemarle. Ms. Waters has an undergraduate degree from Brown University, and Masters’s Degree in Teaching from Emory University, and in Urban and Environmental Planning from the U. of Virginia. She is married and has three grown children and seven grandchildren.